


Anna: Reunite with your husband (Mithos can come too)

by rarmaster



Series: don't you worry child [17]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Crossover, Gen, XC2 AU, and a little bit of focus on Malos (xenoblade) lmao but, anna! and kratos! and mithos! getting along!!!!!!!!!!!, thank u for coming to my ted talk, the rest of teams M / M2 are here but we're just focusing on these three, we're ass deep in like three AUs so [jazz hands], yes i AM going to milk every little drop out of these circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: One family reunion on a beach. Kratos is happy to see his family again. Mithos vehemently denies any crushes he does or does not have. Anna frets more than she should about the alternate universe version of her father she got stuck with.Probably nonsensical if you haven't read YWKON. Direct sequel tothere must be some finesse.[DYWC; teams M and M2 merge]
Relationships: Anna Irving & Mithos Yggdrasill, Anna Irving/Kratos Aurion, Kratos Aurion & Mithos Yggdrasill
Series: don't you worry child [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1414204
Kudos: 9





	Anna: Reunite with your husband (Mithos can come too)

**Author's Note:**

> finally god i think that's all the missing scenes before the 10k davefic (excluding, like, skits)
> 
> you can get basics about the teams and each character involved [here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/4030.html). and if you want the YWKON basics post, you'll find that [here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/24351.html).
> 
> housekeeping: Anna Mithos and Kratos are all technically from an rp flavor AU of ywkon fondly called "we broke ywkon" or "wbywkon". same characters shifted slightly left so that they all know each other and get along instead of Mithos and Anna being at each other's throats lmao. [wbywkon breakdown here](https://rarsneezes.dreamwidth.org/28627.html), if you're curious. nothing's changed since _there must be some finesse_ , though.

Anna doesn’t walk as far as she wants to or as long as she wants to, because she’s in the middle of an unfamiliar world with no real landmarks, and the last thing she wants to do is get _lost._ She ends up walking maybe thirty feet away, still within eyesight of the other Kratos, not her Kratos, the Kratos who will one day become the god of her world. Anyway, she walks that far, and then she just paces in several circles, trying to work off her excess energy and the Yuck building in her gut.

Kratos promised he’d do better. And he seemed—to get it, _Architect_ she hopes he got it. Realizing that your son thinks you never loved him is a hard pill to swallow but it’s one Kratos has to, so he can not fuck it up completely.

Anna’s already learned that lesson and she- she dreads to think what she would have done, had that alternate version of Lloyd from another world entirely not literally broken into her house. And, you know, made her realize that her whole “stay away from Lloyd to keep him safe and miss his most vital years growing up” idea was absolute bullshit. She wishes it hadn’t taken _meeting her son from an alternate dimension_ to wake her the fuck up, but.

At least she found her Lloyd before he got any older than eight, she guesses. It’s weird and it’s not perfect—and _fuck_ does she need to get _back,_ at least Malos promised it’d be like she was never gone—but it’s _something,_ it’s better. It’s better than—she can’t even imagine, if she hadn’t gone looking for him at all. Would he ever forgive her? Would _Kratos_?

( _They would, is the truth of it._

_It would just take them a very, very long time._

_And the less said about Lloyd’s brokenness in its wake, the better._ )

( _But this Anna is not that Anna, she’s an Anna shifted slightly left, an Anna who was lucky enough to realize her mistake before the damage was quite irreparable, even though it did take months for her and Kratos to patch things up—and he had every right to be furious that she seemingly had lost their son and no one knew where he was! Anna wouldn’t have blamed him for hating her for longer, but… Well, Kratos’ soft heart is besides the point._ )

In all of her pacing she finally turns around and properly notices that Kratos is no longer sitting where he was. In fact she doesn’t see Kratos at all, just Malos, talking to Chara. Hm.

Curious and a little confused, Anna trots back that direction.

“See what I meant about having a little patience?” Chara asks, brightly, and if Anna wasn’t used to blades being much more comfortable around their own kind than around her, she’d be jealous that Chara’s so open around Malos. They seem to have some kind of understanding, the two of them.

“Kid if I have to listen to your lecture for even another second we’re gonna find out just how much patience I actually have,” Malos counters, and Anna laughs, recognizing that as just Malos being dramatic for the hell of it—but it’s a little strange, though. To hear that joke without the usual thread of teasing and levity underneath. If she didn’t know him so well he could fool her into thinking the threat wasn’t empty, and he was actually upset, and…

He shoots her a kind of glare, which suggests he doesn’t think this is as funny as Anna finds it. Anna swallows her laughter. Reaches up to press her knuckles into the core crystal chunk in her collarbone—as purple and vibrant as the unbroken, _Aegis_ core crystal set in Malos’.

She’s probably never going to get used to seeing her dad like this, she thinks.

( _The less she thinks about_ why _Malos holds so much anger, the better, also._ )

“Where’s Kratos?” Anna asks, because, like, someone should?

“He wants to wait to explain until Mithos has joined us,” Chara informs Anna. “I’m pretty sure I have his attention, so we just need to wait for him to make his way over—he got pretty far away.”

“Literally don’t see why I _shouldn’t_ set off a flare to grab his attention, gotta be faster than your nonsense,” Malos grumbles, but the way he folds his arms over his chest suggests he’s not actually going to make good on the suggestion, only grumble about it.

Anna kind of has to agree, there. But also: “Can’t you just teleport us to him? Or him here? I know that’s a thing you can do.”

Malos rolls his eyes as dramatically as he possibly can instead of answering. Fine, then.

“No need,” Chara says, fixing their gaze to their left, and—yeah, okay, all Anna has to do is lean slightly around Malos’ bulk to see Mithos flying towards them.

He lands with a lot of displaced moondust, first sending Chara a concerned look, but then once he’s determined they’re fine, he turns his attention to Malos, scowling immediately.

“Where’s Kratos?” Mithos asks.

“There, now I don’t have to repeat myself!” Malos says, brightly. “I sent him back to his team—not like y’all wanted to interact with him, anyway. How would y’all like to see _your_ Kratos, instead?”

“Oh shit,” Anna says, on reflex. “Yeah, can you take me to him?” It hadn’t even occurred to her to _ask,_ and she feels like an idiot for that.

Malos scoffs, confident. “If Alvis and Mythra get to fuck around with the team comp, then I sure as hell get to, too.”

Mithos hums, his eyebrows raised. Oh boy. “And you said you didn’t care about us,” he teases.

“One more word and we’ll see how much you being an Aegis actually matters in this world,” Malos threatens, and Anna’s pretty sure he’ll make good on that one if Mithos _does_ open his mouth, so:

“Hey, thanks,” Anna tells Malos, reaching over to pat him on the arm, in some matter of patting that’s more like punching just without as much force, anyway. It’s a reflex, but to his credit, he takes it like he’s a rock, even if he scowls at her. Anna kills the bit of her soul that screams because she doesn’t know if that was okay actually but it’s so hard to act different around him sometimes and—

“Yeah, whatever,” Malos says, derailing her thought process before she could dig herself any deeper into it, like a saint. ( _He’d probably laugh if she called him that._ ) ( _She wonders if it’d be a good laugh_.) And then he reaches over and with a lazy wave of his fingers time and space rips itself open for them. “Just head on through there, your Kratos and the rest are on the other side.”

Okay, cool, think about that and not about this weird version of your dad, Anna, you can do that.

“Thanks!!” she says one more time just because Malos _really is_ doing her a humungous favor, here. And then she jumps through the portal, knowing that Mithos and Chara will figure themselves out and it doesn’t have to be her problem.

Anna lands on a beach, sand shifting beneath her feet—she’s a little ways up from the shoreline, the ocean cast in deep blue by the setting sun to her left and that’s about all she processes because she spots her husband sitting in the sand and he’s all that matters.

Alright, okay, that’s unfair. With her husband, her Kratos, there’s also two teenage boys; one lays on his side in the sand, propped up on an elbow, and the other is laying in midair (??) floating by some means (??). The fourth person is one that Anna’s brain, used to seeing blades of various animalistic sorts, manages to parse as a hedgehog, his fur black and red. The hedgehog looks to her, as does the boy on the ground—he even sits upright, wary. Anna barely minds it.

“Kratos!!” she calls, as if he hasn’t seen her. She runs across the beach towards him, cursing uneven sand but not stopping, not slowing at least until she’s a little closer.

He waves at her, and then once he has her attention, he signs: _I can’t talk right now, so you’ll have to introduce yourself._

It doesn’t _quite_ bring Anna to a complete halt in her tracks, but it’s a near thing. It doesn’t exactly kill her delight, either, but it does undercut that delight with a sharp concern, as she finally comes to a stop at a respectable distance from Kratos. If he’s nonverbal, she’ll need to ask before she gets any closer.

“Holy shit,” she breathes, heart thinking long before her head, deciding only one of the things he said is relevant for the moment. “Are you okay?”

Kratos nods, his smile patient and good natured. _I’m fine, I’m fine,_ he assures her.

“Can you at least give me a number?”

 _I’m at a three, maybe,_ Kratos answers, shaking his head with exasperation. Okay, a three’s good. Anything under a five is more than she expected from him, right now. (With a ten being an active panic attack, and anything over a five qualifying as a bad day.) _Honestly, it might be a two now that you’re here,_ Kratos adds, with a knowing little smile and fucking hell he does that all the time but it never doesn’t render Anna’s heart an incompressible mess for a few seconds.

Anna opens her mouth to tell him to quit that, but Kratos just looks knowingly between her and his companions and signs: _Introductions, maybe?_

“Oh, right.” Anna pulls her eyes away from her husband with some difficulty, waving to his companions. “I’m Anna—” Kratos catches her eyes (an easy thing) and signs for her to add: “— _his_ wife,” and no she doesn’t blush as she says so, of course she doesn’t.

Fuck, did she miss him.

She has to be quiet while everyone else does introductions, and she swears—she swears she remembers all the names, really, but she waits literally no longer than after Chara gives their name to address Kratos again, a little worried.

“Are you okay?” she asks, again. “What happened?”

Kratos sighs, and when he signs again, it’s annoyed: _I met with Lloyd’s Kratos,_ he explains. _It went… predictably._

“Figures,” Mithos barks a laugh, bitter. Anna twists just slightly to see Mithos hovering to her right, arms crossed over his chest. “What’d he say to you? If I get my hands on him again I swear—”

Kratos quickly shakes his head. _No, not his fault,_ he answers, rapidly. Then his expression goes dark, his mouth pulled in a tight frown. _There was a cave in, before that. I’m… not sure how long I spent trapped, to be honest._

Anna winces and exhales shakily, trying not to think too much about it. Mithos hisses, somewhere between angry and sympathetic. That… would do it. That would more than do it.

Wanting to be closer to Kratos, though she knows better than to try touching him right now—even if he was okay with it, it would make signing difficult—Anna drops to her knees and scoots a little closer to him. The sand is kind of hell on her bare legs, and if she’s not careful it _is_ going to get in her boots and be hell there, but you know what? That’s a problem for future Anna. Current Anna has her husband to worry about.

“Hey…” she begins, then—distinctly aware of all the eyes on her and not wanting to embarrass her husband nor give the others any information without making sure Kratos is comfortable sharing—she fumblingly tacks on in sign: _You’re free._

Kratos blinks at her, then laughs. It’s a little weaker, a little raspier than it should be, but his shoulders shake just like they always do. _I know,_ he tells her, bright. _My voice just fucked off somewhere, and I haven’t cared enough to go looking for it._

“If you’re joking like that, you really must be fine,” Mithos laughs, and Kratos grins at him. It makes Anna’s heart feel lighter to see.

 _I wish I knew where my voice was, honestly,_ Kratos says, sighing. The look he sends towards Anna is longing in such a way that she has a pretty good idea what his next words are before he even moves to sign them. _It’s rather difficult to sign and cuddle at the same time._

“Sorry,” Anna says.

“I mean,” Mithos says, carefully, eyeing Kratos. “I have half a solution to that problem.” Kratos raises his eyebrows at him. Mithos gestures towards the spot by Kratos. “May I?”

Once Kratos nods, Mithos sits down at something of an angle from Kratos, so that their knees are touching but he’s still mostly facing Kratos. He raises his eyebrows like _there, see?_ and then he looks at Anna. He doesn’t even have to say anything. She gets the idea, and—once she has a nod from Kratos—mirrors Mithos on Kratos’ other side. They make something of a triangle like that and it’s… it’s not perfect. But Kratos seems to relax with it, and Anna can put her hand on his leg, and it’s something. It’s more than something.

Everyone else takes the hint and leaves them alone, which is nice. The floaty boy—Dave? Dave—Dave floats over to go bug Chara, who keeps stealing glances at the hedgehog, Shadow. The other boy sitting in the sand, Riku… he watches Anna and her family for a moment, but when he sees her looking, he quickly turns away and shuffles a little ways down the beach. So; privacy, of a sort. She just hopes Chara doesn’t mind…

She looks to Mithos, who is very-obviously leaning around Anna to watch Chara and Dave talk. His expression isn’t nervous, exactly, but his eyes are narrowed, watching intently.

“They gonna be okay?” Anna asks.

Mithos startles just a little, turns to her. Only his wide eyes betray that she surprised him, but he scowls soon enough. “They should be,” he says, perfectly neutral. “Certainly they’re capable of telling Dave to buzz off if they need to. It’s not my problem.”

Anna sends him a look, disbelieving. ( _He can say that all he wants, but she’s not convinced he means it._ ) Kratos looks between the two of them, eyebrows narrowed in question.

“They’re his driver,” Anna explains.

 _Driver?_ Kratos repeats, as if the surprise on his face wasn’t enough of a question.

Mithos huffs. “Something about this world—this universe? Something about it undid the changes we did to the blade system; at least to me. So for the moment, I need a driver. If it wouldn’t have taken three days, in unfamiliar territory, I might have swapped to Anna, but…”

“No you wouldn’t’ve,” Anna says.

Mithos rolls his eyes. “Chara’s not bad for a human,” he says, instead of addressing Anna directly. “And they don’t know anything about blades that I haven’t told them, which works out. It’s really not that different from letting Lloyd drive me,” he muses, though there’s a tone of wistfulness under it that almost implies he _wishes_ it were Lloyd, instead. Anna’s heart swells with pride—sure, she knows most of that just comes from how much Mithos cares for his brother, but the mother in her is still delighted to hear that even an alternate version of her son ranks so high on Mithos’ list.

 _You seem to think highly of them,_ Kratos says, impressed, his eyebrows still raised.

 _Baby’s first crush,_ Anna signs, wanting to tease Mithos but also having the decency to not say it so everyone else can hear. Her back is mostly to Chara, and they aren’t paying attention, anyway—they’re the only other one who can understand sign here.

“Hey,” Mithos says.

Kratos _snrks,_ then signs: _What about Genis?_

“Hey!” Mithos snaps. “Shut up, both of you.”

Anna laughs, bright and gleeful, ducking away from the glare Mithos is sending her. “Really, though,” she says, because she’s not so mean that she’s going to _prolong_ Mithos’ suffering. (Not that he really needs her to help, when it comes to Chara.) “Chara’s a good kid. It’s been fun, traveling with them.”

They get along well with Mithos, and their dry humor has gotten more than one laugh out of Anna before. They don’t seem to _like_ her, exactly, but they tolerate her, and given what Anna understands about Chara and their relationship with humans, well. That’s pretty high praise.

She processes about then that they’ve left Chara alone with two new humans, and she sends a glance at them—They _look_ okay enough. Their posture is defensive, fists clenched and shoulders tight, but if Anna listens she can hear them being as verbose as they always are while they glare… not Dave, the other one, Riku. They glare Riku down but… Anna looks to Mithos, because he’ll have a leg up on her when it comes to reading the situation, considering that Chara being his driver means he can feel their emotions.

“They doing okay?” Anna asks. “I know I already asked but I did just process that the number of humans on this beach doubled when we arrived, and…”

“I think they’re okay,” Mithos tells her, and doesn’t elaborate. Well, it’s his and Chara’s business—it’s not like he _has_ to share what the emotion bleed feels like with Anna.

Kratos flaps a hand for their attention, and once he has it, signs: _Riku’s not human, if you think that helps at all._

Mithos and Anna exchange looks. Anna has no idea. Mithos shrugs, after a moment.

“It could,” he says. Then he scowls, turns to consider Riku again. “He’s really not human?”

Kratos shakes his head. _He’s a…_ and then he pauses, scowling, and spells _R-E-P-L-I-C-A._

“Replica?” Mithos repeats, and Anna’s grateful, because she’s out of practice just enough that it’s hard for her to keep up when Kratos spells things that fast.

 _They’re closer to blades than humans, I think,_ Kratos says, then shrugs. _He could explain it better than I could._

“Sounds like you’ve been having fun traveling with your team, too,” Anna says, because as curious as she is about the Replica thing, it can definitely wait until later. She’s more interested in how Kratos has been, and if her leading comment doesn’t tell him that then hopefully her expression will.

Kratos doesn’t quite laugh, but he does smile. _I’m not sure I’d use the word fun,_ he counters, _but it’s been alright. They’re good kids._

(Sure, all of them are almost twenty, but to two 500-year-old blades and one human who’s been twenty-eight for the past twenty years? They might as well be kids.)

 _I don’t think I have anything interesting to share… oh!_ Kratos says, his face lighting up with realization. _Later, you’ll have to ask Dave to show you one of his… He calls them R-A-P-S. It’s like… a music thing. Almost a poetry thing._ His face is scrunched up like he’s not entirely sure how to describe them, but eventually he settles on: _You’ll have to hear one to get it._

“Raps?” Anna repeats, just to make sure she got the word. Kratos nods.

“If it’s a poetry thing, no wonder you like it, Kratos,” Mithos teases, gently nudging Kratos’ knee.

Kratos laughs, shaking his head just a little in exasperation. _I guess it’s the same,_ he says. Then he makes eye-contact with Anna. _I think you’d like them too, Anna. It’s… Like I said, you’ll have to ask him._

“I’ll ask him later,” Anna says.

“Is this about my totally undeniably sick beats—WOAH!”

Hearing the voice behind her, Anna rounds rapidly on its source—just Dave, hands raised and moving backwards. No wonder she didn’t hear him coming, his feet aren’t even touching the ground! Anna hadn’t quite gotten to her feet, but she’d definitely shifted her legs so she _could_ jump up, and… she feels a little bad, but only a little. Her fuse is short for a reason, after all. ( _That reason being like thirty years of living on the streets and also the battle instincts of any well-trained warrior._ )

( _She doesn’t think about how automatically she reached for a resonance that isn’t currently there when she startled—no, she doesn’t think about that at all._ )

“Shit sorry forgot no one in this club likes getting snuck up on, my bad,” Dave says, rapidly. His hands are still raised, but it’s hard to tell what expression he’s making exactly, or if he’s even looking at Anna, given the glasses he has covering his eyes. “I could apology rap to make up for it? Shit I dunno man.”

Anna settles back down on the ground, partially facing Dave just because that’s polite. “Hey, don’t sweat it,” she tells him. She laughs, friendly. “If I could fly everywhere, I would, too. If _Mithos_ saw you coming, he should have said something!” And this she accompanies with a not-unserious glare towards Mithos.

Mithos shrugs, unapologetic. “Didn’t get the chance before he opened his mouth.”

“Apology rap yes? No?” Dave asks.

Anna honestly isn’t sure, but is saved from having to make a decision by Mithos: “Kratos says maybe later,” Mithos says. “…unless Anna really wants to hear one now.”

It’s funny, because though she’s sure any other time Mithos might have punctuated that with his own annoyance, when he translates for Kratos, Mithos’ voice is clear.

“Later,” Anna agrees.

“Oh no no that’s chill, totally completely chill, I’m the king of chill,” Dave says rapidly, before Anna can even think of apologizing, and she wasn’t even sure she’d bother to be honest. “I’d wanna kick back and shoot the shit with my fam long before I wanted to listen to any rando rap at me too, so like. Later we can set up a hot date with you and my sick beats. Hell yeah. Okay later.”

He floats off down the beach.

…Anna’s not sure she could have gotten a word in edgewise even if she’d wanted to, damn.

 _He’s like that,_ Kratos explains, smiling, when Anna turns back to him. That smile is full of nothing but fondness, and Anna smiles knowingly. She opens her mouth, then thinks better saying aloud, and instead signs:

_I can’t believe you adopted more kids._

(As if she doesn’t know _exactly_ how quick Kratos was to take the artificial Aegises under his wing.)

Kratos ducks his head down, probably embarrassed, but smiling too widely to really argue. Finally he raises his eyebrows at Anna, then looks meaningfully towards Chara.

 _You’re one to talk,_ he counters.

Anna opens her mouth. Closes it. That’s not… quite, but Kratos’ point gets across well enough even if his accusation isn’t wholly true.

“Alright, that’s fair,” Anna says, aloud this time. “We’re both valid.”

“You’re both _ridiculous,_ ” Mithos counters, with a dramatic eye roll.

Kratos doesn’t let him off the hook, though, turning the knowing smile his direction. _I seem to recall you taking a similar liking to Zelos and Colette…_

Mithos splutters, jerks his head away as if that will hide the glow of his blush on his cheeks. It’s not _too_ pronounced, but he definitely won’t look at either of them. “They- they’re both _literally my siblings,_ ” he counters, voice a little high. “So I have- an excuse! And neither of you do! And! Ugh, you’re the _worst_ brother.”

“Brothership ended with Kratos, now Lloyd is my new brother?” Anna offers, parroting a joke Chara made the other day which she still thinks is hilarious. Then she processes exactly how that sounds. “Oh, wait, that sounds—our family doesn’t make _any_ sense when you think about it.”

Mithos’ face scrunches up in similar disgust. Kratos takes pity on them both.

 _Hey,_ he says, to get their attention. _Never mind that—It seems each… team…_ Kratos frowns as he signs this, like he doesn’t like the word ‘team’ but doesn’t have a better word; Anna understands. She’s heard Malos phrase it like that before, and still isn’t sure how she feels about it. Either way, Kratos continues: _Each team has a corresponding Aegis looking after them._

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Mithos says, the moment he sees Kratos sign _Aegis._ “Who’d you get stuck with?”

 _Mythra, actually,_ Kratos answers.

Mithos squints. “Who?”

“Mythra?” Anna repeats, not sure if she saw him sign that right, but Kratos nods. Anna opens her mouth in protest, because she knows Mythra, and _Mythra_ as an Aegis makes almost as much sense as Malos—oh, wait, they’re siblings, aren’t they? Not that her Malos and the Mythra she knows ( _she hasn’t even seen Mythra in five years, whoops, one of these days they’ll have to hunt her and the others down, Anna knows they survived…_ ) were ever really _that_ close, having known each other some twenty-odd years or not, and…

Actually, hold on.

One: Anna realizes that Malos has mentioned Mythra in passing like a million times before up until now and she didn’t even note anything special about it, let alone make the _this means Mythra is an Aegis_ connection.

Two: Weird how of all things that stayed the same across universes, _Mythra and Malos being siblings_ was one of them.

Three: This means her Malos has _two other siblings they didn’t even know about._ On the list of things to look into when she gets back, she guesses!!! (Does Mythra know about the others? Why didn’t she say anything? Actually she might have mentioned Alvis in passing, now that Anna’s thinking about it but… No you know what she never told Mythra and the others that she _wasn’t dead_ so Anna has no right getting mad, actually.)

Anyway.

“We got stuck with _Malos,_ ” Mithos is saying.

Kratos raises his eyebrows in clear disbelief.

“Yeah,” Anna says, “It's... really weird?”

 _I… can imagine,_ Kratos says. He looks at Anna, his brow furrowed with concern. He probably wants to ask something like if Anna's okay, but he doesn't.

“Yeah,” Mithos adds, “It _is_ really weird being around him, and I don't even know him that well.” (As if they didn't spend months traveling together.) He makes a face, not quite troubled, but neither pleasant. “He's kind of a dick. " Then Mithos smiles, entirely mean. “But he's fun to mess with.”

“Hey, be nice to him!” Anna says.

“What, it's not like he's your daddy in this universe, you don't need to be defending him.”

Reflexively, Anna makes a noise of disgust. “ _Please_ stop calling him daddy, I swear.”

 _Is he that different?_ Kratos asks, still with that concern written on his brow.

Anna fidgets a little where she sits, uncomfortable, not quite sure how to put it. Because, he is different, but he isn't, but he _is_. And articulating how he _is_ is difficult. Anna doesn't really have all the answers. It's not like he talks to her, not as much as her Malos does, of course he doesn't. So Anna doesn't have any _context_ , nor does she have the words to articulate but he seems... angrier somehow, but also sadder? Just a man going through the motions. Like he doesn't _care_.

“Of all blades I expected to be an Aegis,” Mithos begins, but Kratos shoots him a look, and he shuts his mouth. Kratos doesn't even have to _say_ that wasn't what he was asking.

Anna sighs. “He doesn't care—”

“He cares,” Mithos interjects.

“It's like he doesn't know _how_ to care,” Anna argues. She laughs, frustrated, feeling silly, a little bit wanting to change the subject. ( _The less she has to think about Malos, doing something other than caring as naturally as breathing, the better._ ) “Plus, I mean, I keep expecting him to be my dad but he's not. He doesn't even know me. And that's weird.”

 _I can imagine,_ Kratos says.

Mithos shrugs, makes an expression like he knows his opinion isn't exactly wanted, but speaks anyway. “It's like interacting with our Lloyd, to be honest,” he says. “I got so used to him being my brother that him being my nephew is... Really weird.”

“Yeah,” Anna sighs. “I guess it's like that.”

She takes her knowledge of Malos’ grief, and she tucks it away. She doesn't want to think about it. And there's really no point bringing it up.

( _Jin? Dead? She hates thinking about the possibility, the reality._ )

“Whatever,” Anna says. She scoots a little closer to Kratos in question. “Can I?” she asks. She's done talking for now. So.

Kratos grabs her and tugs her to him. Permission granted, Anna curls up against his side. She takes comfort in the satisfied hum in his throat, the way he holds her tight. At least there's this. At least this makes sense. At least he's here, too.

“I guess you probably want me to bug off,” Mithos says, but he only gets that far before Kratos grabs him, too, and pulls him into the hug. Mithos laughs, startled, but not protesting.

And the three of them sit on the beach like that for a while.


End file.
